‘Fight Club’ Still Serves as an Odyssey of Alienation and Brotherhood
Fight Club conveyed Gen X men’s frustration, leading to paramilitary militia groups and Promise Keepers. It lends itself to reinterpretation to this day.
Matthew McEver
Matthew McEver, MFA is Senior Lecturer of English at the University
of North Georgia where he teaches Creative Writing, Composition,
and Multicultural American Literature.
From Melville to Metal: The Conceptual Depths of Mastodon’s ‘Leviathan’
Mastodon’s Leviathan is a concept LP inspired by American novelist Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Think of it as sludge metal’s answer to Dark Side of the Moon.
Straight from No Man’s Land: A Conversation with Texas Bluesman Scott H. Biram
To encounter Scott H. Biram live-and-in-person, you’d figure Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister had kin in Caldwell County, a distant cousin steeped in Willie Dixon and Lightnin Hopkins.
Avant-Metal’s Lords of Terror: Fantômas’ Eponymous Debut at 25
Fantômas stand as one of the most audacious music projects of the 1990s. You almost wonder if the quasi-mainstreamish Faith No More held Mike Patton back.
The Menacing, Grimy Weirdness of Melvins’ ‘Houdini’ at 30
Once Houdini dropped, all the agonizing over whether Melvins would debase themselves and compromise their sound petered out before we were halfway into “Hooch”.
Tool’s Undertow, 1990s Culture Wars, and the Rehabilitation of Gen-X
After Tool whapped us upside the head with Undertow, you knew you’d never listen to that hairband boom-bap with a straight face ever again.
Botch’s Mathcore Masterpiece ‘We Are the Romans’ Remains Reflective of Millennial Groupthink
This reissue of a groundbreaking, out-of-print album, Botch’s We Are the Romans holds the emotions of its time, the musical incarnation of millennial anxiety.
The Noise of the World, Turning on Itself: Dälek’s ‘From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots’
From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots established Dälek as the finest underground, deconstructive hip-hop outfit that ever toured with heavy-metal heavyweights and held their own.
The Beautiful Depravity of Faith No More’s Angel Dust 30 Years Later
Faith No More’s Angel Dust showed a band so hellbent on following their creative instincts that they were willing to risk alienating a half-million people.